God's Cruel and Rotten Humor
by Natsuki Death
Summary: "So heavenly minded, he was no earthly good." Anya shudders at her wandering mind. The moaning stirring up as she waits and prays in the dark cemetery; the last and probably only place now Anya felt anything close to safe. Alone, prone to speak of gods and most of all she knows she isn't capable of surviving this bizarre occurrence.


**God and His Sense of Cruel Humor**

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The handle dropped off, pinging loudly in my ears against the fingers dragging over and over on the door.

It buckles in, wood splinters giving way to the first set of hands. They fight through the remaining barrier, legs stumbling over the wood and tearing off what wouldn't move forward. Saliva and oozing bits drip over my flesh, my stomach lurches at the unbearable reek spilling into the small space.

They grab a hold of me, their cold, lifeless members latching to me, ready for another meal. I was done for and this was the clique scene of no hope in sight.

_Shit this is the end._

The end of knowing what happened to the world, to life, to humankind, and my family's well-being. Why in the world has the gods decided to make me another meal and not a hero, why?

Now I'm gonna die. It'll hurt like the times I fell out of the second story window maybe more if I don't pass out in shock or have my arteries punctured by jagged teeth and broken forearms jabbed into my throat.

_Okay maybe it'll hurt like a whole new level pain but why not prepare for my demise._

The living dead have me surrounded while I only have my knife and hands as weapons. I have nobody around to save me, night has come too soon today; no one will be out to hear my screams.

"Freakin' freaks!" I hit the closet dead to my left, what was once a bulky male dressed in a mechanic's uniform. He loses his jaw entirely with the punch. Well now I didn't need to worry about him eating me but that left me with a huge swarm of them still trucking at me.

"I hate you gods," I stomp the mechanic, his brain spurting out onto my legs; its cold and thick like sludge. "So much," I hack another dead in the face, or what was left of it. "Right Now!"

More freaks push their way into the room, moaning and swatting their dead appendages.

_Of all the stupid luck I could have now you just had to make it be the fucking room I get trapped in, hmm god?_

The narrow passage from the hallway to here allowed only space for two to hobble in, but I have no idea when this riot of freaks would end. I'm still going to die, still barely hanging on in hell that life has rotted down to, I'm done, and this is my ending.

Something else grabs a hold of my neck and sinks in.

_Why?_

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My life became something made up after the world went to shit. I didn't wake up confused or disoriented about this once civilization going down with the impending apocalypse. I just took myself out of the old equation, made myself fit to my new world, and it worked out pretty good.

Life began to make me smile even with the shit hitting the fan. When I would meet somebody and we would sit down in abandon gas stations to trade stories or supplies, when stormy nights blew through my alleyway havens. When somebody said something about my stories or whispered a question about my loyalty and trust when they thought I was knocked out. I knew I would survive this horror one way or another.

_Well for a decent amount of time_.

In the lives we have now we receive power, connection, history, expectations but mine gave me happiness and silly hope. It reminded me of my family, the people I lost and the ones I have gained in surviving this hell.

My new life was a blank slate with only name to show for this new world. This life isn't over and happiness still exist here, I was alive and with a smile, but with bloody hands as well.

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**********STEP ONE: DYING**

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**20 minutes from Atlanta, Georgia **

**Day 1 of Pre-Outbreak**

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Many cars pass me by and I cough at the exhaust pluming out the backend of another '_ghetto fix-me-up_' Honda. After that comes strolling pass me a funnier sight, a Jeep with its windows patched with plastic bags and it's bumper taped up under sliver duck tape. Several normal looking vehicles roll pass to assure me this city isn't all sloppy and poor, even a few Mini Coopers pass the busy intersections and I click my tongue as they zip away.

_Dam one day I'm gonna have one of those, polish it twice a day and put it on a spinning table just so I can look at for hours. _

I keep to edge of the sidewalk as the center starts to clump up with a swarm of day time workers, like stock market guys, medical interns and lawyers all their lunch breaks; probably. They weave in and out of people's ways, and some of the lawyers are bickering loudly into their Bluetooth headsets with ranging conversations between a power struggle or threatening deadlines and a series of questions of their not so classy personal life.

A frizzy black-haired intern dressed in her scrubs steps into my path. It's a real wonder that not a single bead of sweat is dripping off the girl completed clothed head to toe. The dark color has to be making her miserable in the sun but then again her face's composed and, well, a bit zoned out like she's not all there actually. I smile at her when she looks right at me but then she crunches up her nose and sticks out her tongue to me before she flips back to her phone in hand.

_What the hex?_

I shake my head, trying to keep it together as the laughter's building up in my chest. People can be so strange today and I love that so much, just a bit too much seeing as I about to fall over from randomness of the frizzy head. I push head of the growing crowd and the laughs come out in a small fit of giggles. Gosh I love the new people I was meeting here in Georgia, they make this new place a joy to be in.

_This is fun._

It's an exciting thing to do on my days of exploration. Walking around somewhere I've never been to, seeing all the sights, people, sounds, and smells you haven't experienced. The sensory overload can get a little distracting but today it's a sweet escape as I make my way across the bustling Atlanta streets.

_I wish this kind of happiness could always be near in my heart. I like it a lot. _

I hum a little a tune as I walk onto another bus, this time it's just pulling up to the curb rather than pulling away, lucky me.

_Today can still be fun for me._

It's half full once I step on. Most of the seated passengers look up as I pass by and I squirm a little in my head. Do people really need to look up at strangers with direct eye contact? It feels so odd. I finally get seat, having to make a circle back to the front and take a window seat down in front. A very pale teenage boy sits down besides me. His dyed black hair, way to long for comfort, lies in my lap now and I look it anomalously.

_How does somebody down in the south grow out so much hair? _

He's really distracted by his Game-boy to notice me glancing over to watch him button mash his controls and his sideways fist pump for something he just did in the game. I turn away from the boy, laughing a little in my head at the sight before laying my head against the warm glass and shutting my eyes. The black nightmare comes over me as rest falls on my warm face and all I can do is let it happen.

I have death to meet today and I rather not dwell on it for too long.

Enough shit has happened already why bring the gloom along with a trip so sad already.

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Soon the busy sidewalks and window shoppers out for a day time stroll become quiet neighborhoods, kids riding bikes and running on those heel-wheel shoes. More nature crops up in the home streets, trees spans out to the sky and sway with the breeze lifting up in an irregular time.

The sound of kids and rushing traffic starts to fade, slipping further and further away from where I trek off to. I look up and see myself on a silent neighborhood street and the sky high above me.

I sigh at the sight of the sun beaming down and the plush clouds blowing by the sky. The sun is on its merry way to being dusk. I might not make it there if I don't get lucky with my directions soon.

_Gods can you help me out here? I'm kind of in a jam. _

Nothing comes after that thought, just the wind dying down and my shirt sticking to me more. The gods has better things to do than help someone who is fully capable of living without faith, they might be out somewhere helping an old bitter woman from a terrible fire.

"This is a cheese fish!" I pull at the strap on my bag but instead of falling off me it decides to club me in the face. The hit is surprising but the black fabric in the sun for so long burns at my skin.

"Freakin' evil thing!" I tear it off my face, kicking it away from the sidewalk to the grass of some park, something McCoy. I touch my cheek lightly and it stings badly.

_Have I been wrong to think moving states? _

Why on earth did I think moving to Georgia, in the dead of summertime, was the best plan of leaving my parents? My happy mood soiled now as the sting rises up as I frown.

"Please brain do tell your amazing thought process on that one, it's a real page turner." I mutter out the insult to the air as I swing my hands around. What else was there to do but bitch at my brain for doing this to me, even though it is me but not me at the same time.

See brains make decisions but they are not in your life dealing with the obstacles, questions and energy you gotta use to make it in life, all they do is sit pretty in your noggle and making the calls from a safe distance unless you are in a gun fight and then they get splattered all over the place because they didn't do something right or got sassy.

"Okay I got off topic, and I'm sweating more." I could feel the trickles of cold going down my backside. Where is an ice tub in this city, do people just wander around like it's the southern belle days toting their lacy parasol in hand and speaking like dial-up internet with fresh squeezed peach tea in the other hand.

_Serious brain this is way off the goal in mind!_ I flip out my arms, and the light headed feeling came up again. I really should have moved somewhere else, North Carolina would have been at least a smarter choice, the school gave better scholarship money but so much for tuition still.

_Focus now. Come on you can do it._ I drop to the brittle grass with my hands mashed against my heated skin. Panicking and going off on random thought process wasn't helping the ever-growing swelter of my energy. It's freaking burning outside, so humid and cloaked over my breathing I couldn't keep my body cooled off for longer. 6 months and I'm the annoying girl whining for snow, rain, hail but never do I miss the muggy days poured over in moppy clouds and no rain coming down, god those sucks so freakin' much.

Still mom and dad were totally wrong about me moving out here for college, take that! I wasn't missing home, I was loving the freedom and time management to complete my every day, the need to do well in class gave me plenty to do and now I had no reason to meet people or go out unless they came to me or I needed a study partner; which with the higher math classes I got told to be in are kicking my ass to whole another level. I thought pre-calculus in high school was the worse but now it was a blessing in disguise, if that can even be said about that stupid shit I never used again.

A man's voice pipes up during my internal monologue. I let it fade out my ears but the laugh was like a hyena.

"Dawg look'er there!"

"Wha?"

"Chicky over there's trippin' out!"

"Ssh du'e, she may be tweaking!" The other voice picks up in sound as the hyena laugh comes up and curiosity is getting the best of me. _I wanna see a chick tweaking out too!_ I know it odd, but seeing the weird things of my new home would leave me with good memories or at least something to laugh about later on in life if I get stuck in some cubicle job.

I look out from the park and see the guys talking, a big guy wearing one of those camouflage shirts for hunting, though he has a gut hanging over the muddy blue jeans he has the shirt tucked in them. The other one with a finger to his mouth is a scrawny dude with inked arms and a cowboy hat far to big for himself. I kind of raise my lips to laugh at the sight but it drops back as their sights were directed right to me.

They're staring right at me. Just staring wide open without any sense to look like they're doing something else but gawking at me.

_God dammint I'm the tweaking chick, but I don't do drugs, just wild hand gestures!_

I whip my head back to the park's entrance and take my shit up from the yellowed grass. Of course I'm pissed at the fact I got noticed for being a little too weird in the daytime, but to keep having thing s like this happen here is grating on my nerves.

I am weird okay, just straight weird and people in Texas liked that about me, well the people I hanged out with seem to like it, thought the comments from others I grew to knew in my last year there always wondered if I was high or mentally not all there. I just felt different and figured to be odd so that people would come to me rather than I go to them and get rejected. Maybe that's being shy or stuck up but it had been like that for a while, so I lived like that, end of story.

"Aww man lookin' she'a leaving!" Again the hyena laugh voice is squawking away like I can't hear him and I tense up my shoulders thinking over what I shouldn't do.

_It's not my place, it's not my place, it's not my place to shove a foot up his ass today!_

"Well'a you were bein' a creeper." The other said something else but a car rumbled pass before I caught it, oh well he's probably making fun of me as well.

_Everybody let's play 'pick on Anya today' what other stupid things could she possible do and make others think she's crazy, yay! _

I stop there the corner streets, the pavement crumbling off as I stand there to see the bended street names pole telling me either left to Kenmore St. or to right to Chatham Ave. Neither street rings a bell to me, but one will lead me closer to a bus stop or at least close to a pay phone before sundown. Otherwise I'll be bunking at some hotel till I find the Version store and cancel my phone. God why did people feel the need to steal other people's shit just to fuck with them?

"What the hell!" The voices pick up again, the laughing guy throwing out a series of curses follows after a trashcan spilling over the street corner behind me now.

_Seriously?_ I roll my eyes at the clumsy sounds and the random curses they spout out for no reason. Are they drunk or just wanting to screw around in the streets for shits and giggles? Grown men are totally out of my league of understanding; maybe it was a Georgia thing?

_I really need to get going._ The cemetery can't be far from here, if only I found the bus stop earlier today. Not my fault entirely, the hobo wanted me to hear his story and I had nothing better to do.

"Get's it dude!" The other guy makes some noise around the things scattered about and oddly a hissing sound starts up from their side of the street. Are they beating up a house cat, why the fuck do they want to do that, well if that is what they are doing now.

I flip back to them and see it.

Standing in front of a broken home with faded blue as its paint choice and a dirt as the garden are the men, not acting like drunk old men but there's now three other people with them, I think. Well human for they stood on two feet and one had braided hair, the other a bald guy and a redhead but other than that they weren't human. A left arm was swinging around by the mere tendons and another no longer had an abdomen for the most part.

_What is going on over there, is that a costume, why are they dressed up like zombies? I must say that is some fine art right there._

_What the 'effing?!_ I sway off the curb and stand at the edge of the street without breaking my stare with the sight.

I'm really, really confused by this. They're screaming but why? I stare on at the two guys as they keep shoving off the zombie clothed people.

Oh shit, those guys are fighting with those things! Oh shit, shit, shit. That wasn't human, oh no, no, no. This is shittin' not happening today! I got school, life, not being pregnant and single to be doing right now! Not the god dam mutant war to being fighting in!

_Wait._

_No, it can't be…_

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_Oh shit those shittin' punks!_ I tense back my shoulders and huff out a breath held in me, **god dam pranks**. They always get me, ever flipping time I fall for it but nobody as of yet has seen my reactions to it, guess today's my not so lucky day on top of being a shitty one too.

I pick up my shit from the hot asphalt and give the guys the finger as they keep on howling and struggling against the thing, which thinking now was just some elaborate prank. I mean this is a god dam college town, everybody's doing freaky pranks during this semester. Look at me freaking out over pranks, god I'm gonna laugh at tomorrow's new reel on this shit. Man they got me good.

"Dudes you can chill out now!" I wave over to them as I step back over to the park entrance, man they really put up a performance, the looks of fear and the struggle to hold back their zombie actors is a little funny now. They wouldn't even survive two seconds if that were a real brain muncher. I wonder if this was the theater department's prank, sucks Clark didn't warn me about this, god he'll get a good whack to the ears when I find him.

"Dudes, helllllo!" Strange they don't listen to me as I call out, the big guy looked over crying out like this was actually a problem and punched the red head one, okay that was way out of line, acting doesn't do real hitting.

"You can stop now, I got the joke!" I make my way over faster, maybe they were actually hobos, okay stupid thought, but maybe organs weren't falling out like I saw before. I take my feet off the curb and stand before the trash littering the fight scene.

I grab my strap closer to my chest and squeeze hard, I see the freaks and it not a fake, or a prank.

_Never the fucking mind, they are losing limbs and organs, okay brain I hate you a lot!_

"Help me!" The hyena laugh guy falls to the ground; the baldy and braided girl lunge at him as the big guy moves pass the fallen red head. What the effing is going on, this can't be actually brain muncher, limb losing, and forever stumbling on zombies! We don't have shit like that, only in movies and shitty porno plots!

"Ahhh!" Scrawny guy yelps out.

"Thomas! No, no!" The big guy shouts out, his gut bouncing out of time with his heavy footsteps.

It happens, the shit that would scar anybody, well anybody who are squeamish about death, blood, biting and blood curdling screams. The scrawny guy failing about and the mouths plunging into his ribs, the gush of the rip through his stomach and the lengths of intestines that drag out with it .

He's dead if not rushed to a hospital right now. The big guy plowed past my vision of him, took up both his fist, and brought both the munchers down in a heaping smash of brain juices from his killer punch. They drop off the bleeding body immediately.

_Holy shit._

"Thomas! Thomas!" I step back, finally making my body realize the shit storm that had passed here. A boy is dying, been murdered, well not dead yet but attempted murder by two dying bodies. What the hell!

"Hey! Hey!" The big guy's yelling at me, the blood's drenching his camo-shirt and I glance over at the scrawny guy, he's shaking violently as he clutches the big guy's hand. They look similar, maybe father and son or brothers, what luck to have one of the, killed off like an animal.

"I'll c-call 911. " I fumble about my backpack, but come up empty, oh right I don't have one, shit on me. He looks at with squinted eyes, he's probably hoping for me to help out, I drop to my knees and look at the guy dying here. He gotta a jacket wrapped around his waist, what luck it is to me now.

"Sorry man, I don't, I don't, have, got one, but-" Big guy swears then and turns away. "Just help me use the jacket to stop the bleeding, you don't got a phone either?" Please god no, if we both are stuck here without 911 then the guy will die. Shit, shit, shit!

Wanker people stealing my shit just when weird ass- oh wait this gotta be the work of that Bath Salt drugs. _Oh god I was really starting to think that these people were the living dead. _Even now I'm still a pitiful kid thinking we can end the world with tv logic, reality is not like that at all.

"Here move him over, just try to, to not hurt him…much." The guy grabs the scrawny guy's torso, well the remains of it and shifts him off the ground, I take my hands over the knot and pull away the jacket. The guy's eyes are closed but the groan slips pass his lips, barely alive and shit he was he in some hell fire pain.

"You do realize you have just murdered three people, right?" I take the jacket in a bundle and press hard on the oozing wound. There's gotta to be something else to keep him going, but without EMS I can't do much but let him die peacefully if possible now with his intestines hanging out like meat links. The guy merely grunts and his hold on the other man tightens.

They both have sun brunt skin, leathery and spotty with brown patches. Not sure what the eyes colors is but do I have time to look around seeing as one is a triple killer and the other is bleeding out as I think. Maybe they work together, construction, golf partners, secret gay southern lovers, nah too much like fan fiction.

"How do you know each other?" I peer up from the warm ooze coming up from the soaked jacket, this isn't doing shit for this poor fellow. My enteral apologies to whatever god or gods are at play here but you folks are a real piece of shit to us humans.

"He's my half-brother, I never knew of him till this past fall."

_Shit I didn't see that one coming._

"Mama didn't like talking about her past men, but he just found her and she had'a to tell me then." He drops off then and the trembling begins in his back.

_Shit he is going to cry me a river now. _I rub my eyes as the thought jumps to mind. God I'm a rude person, the man's losing his half brother of recent knowledge, why am I being a heartless wrench today!?

"I ca-can never imagine the pain this is or what this is even close to feeling like, but know this," He shifts back looking at me with teary eyes, I gulp back a urge to laugh this off like a stupid prank. "He'll be gone from this earth but let right now be a moment to say your last words, he's fading fast without hope now. Say goodbye to…."

"Thomas Ruper Wilkins." Big guy takes his bloody hand over mine and lowers his face to Thomas. I move myself from the pair and the weeping voice of big guy.

What in the world has happened? A guy gets rips to shred right in front of me then has to die slowly and painfully. I didn't know drugs could do this, but nobody has said any thing on Bath Salts being in circulation here, I mean college students are stupid and wild someone them do that shit for fun.

I look up from the ground, the bodies lay splattered across the black tar street and oozing out an odd color. I crouch down as I approach the red head's body, it's eye ripped away and blankly look up at me. I hover over them thinking it better to squish them, but it's a human body part, that would be sick of me to do that to a drugged human. Would I want the same treatment in death, nope.

The eye's clouded, veins dilated and dark spots of dead cells lay over it all, my god this chick must have been strung out for days. No wonder she went ape-shit, but what about the others? The investigation leads me back over to the pair of brothers and the smashed in skulls of the fallen. The strays are gonna love all this dead meat lying around, well if somebody doesn't find us first before then.

_Hey, that is a good question._ Where was anyone, I mean day-time people are out and about so at least two other people should be wandering around here, dammit I should check!

"Hey guy," He slowly turns to me and I cringe at the tears going down his blood covered beard. "I'm going to look around, keep that pressure on him, okay?"He doesn't respond but he puts both his hands on the guy's wound, god he's counting on me now more than ever. I barely know the guy and I got his and his brother's life in my hands.

_There's gotta be people around here somewhere, please god help me out on this one._ I fumble to lock my hands around each other with the silent begging to the _'big chiefs'_ above us all. Again at the corner street and I follow after the wind blowing now, off to Kenmore Street.

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The houses on the left gives no answer.

The houses on the right don't either.

I bang on screen doors, peer through all the windows, call out and make stupid threats on their property. Nobody answers me, no house is full of life, and no one is here. No one to help me, that guy is going to die without even a chance.

"Hello? Anybody?" I knock against a red door and hear only a dog whimpering through the letterbox.

"Where's your owner, buddy?" The whimper stops then and a growling begin till I walk off the yard. A box of photos lay scattered out here and a trash bag of can goods still on driveway as well.

I turn away from the house and bolt for Chatham avenue, there has to be somebody around. Just has to be.

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The houses on both ends make no response to my pleas. No animal comes to greet my appearance here and more things are thrown out the homes like a fight happened over lovers. Pictures, food, pillows wrapped in sheets, baby bags, and kitchen utensils lay amuck the yards I pass with every plea and bang for response.

_Nobody's here either! No, no, no, no no, no!_

"Come on, god help me out here!" I wave out my hands pleading with the sky so blue and miserable unaware of the life draining out of some poor fellow.

_Does anyone even live in these neighbors or what?_

A grind of metal picks up as my hand falls limp to my sides. A garage door hovered open reveals itself to me on my left. A way into a house without breaking into and a phone would be there! I run over tripping at the driveway slope and peer into the space.

A dreary area without much to it but a few shelves stacked with tools and sports equipment. The room's cooler than outside, but the taste of sawdust lingers a little to close to my nose.

"Achoo!" I dip down to my knees and jump right back up with a dizzy moment.

_Freakin' A I don't need that now, stupid nose, control yourself._

At the door I twist the childproof handle, it refuses to budge, but the lock isn't the problem. Something's in the way, heavy but if I push enough it'll shift. I push my foot door and stumble forward into it.

Oh they have a pet door as well.

I go down and peel back the plastic cover; a TV is blocking my way into here. I laugh at it and go back up to start pushing at it more. It squeaks as it rolls away enough to get myself into the place, so I leave my bags propped up at the doors.

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The place's a mess. Nothing's in an order, things splayed about and chunks of the wall are messing or hanging lose. The once white carpet is covered in dog fur, hidden in layers of fuzzy strands and disgusting stains of past mistakes line the hall I walk through.

"Jesus, the garage got nothin' on this shit storm…" I whisper out with a smirk on my lips, I bite it back. Now wasn't the time for my antics. A person was dying and I'm worrying over a hobo house's smell.

My hands find themselves pressed against the walls and I keep walking forwards like that, the turquoise paint crackles off as I slide my fingertips over it. The odor of this place is bad, real bad. You'll be breathing in and think you're face first in cow shit or some back alley china restaurant serving last week's duck rice. Nobody officially lived in this house, unless they just hated the house that much to let it smell like rotted compost.

"Oh man…" I mash a palm to my nose as another sight comes into view as I step out of the hall.

Blood's smeared upon the walls like a massive paint balloon full of red crashed through here. Blood's on a couch, pillows shredded to fluff and I can see the spring baseboards of it hanging out and rammed into the wall beside it. The couch looks like it was meant to be a shield, a guard between whatever was in the room beyond it. Blood's splattered and sprayed upon everything and it leads my eyes upwards, a ceiling fan's spinning around with something wet and long. I grab out for it and it falls all over me.

Cold, wet and I grasp a hold of it before I let my eyes see it.

I lurch back and it gets tangled between my legs. Intestines, a good lot of the human organ lay wrapped all over me, I twitch and tear at it before I scream out for help. Nobody was coming why waste the breath to do so.

That's what I tell myself, knowing how shitty of a lie that could be now. I'm witness to another death here in this home right now.

_Oh god is somebody still here? Oh shit I'm trespassing then! No I gotta help out first! _

My thought cross fire and get thrown to the as I wipe away the slime coating my hands and look around. There's the blood everywhere in the living room, a TV smashed in and glass wedge into the walls. I step away from the organ lying limp on the disgusting floor and my stomach grumbles.

_Lovely stomach now is the prefect time to tell me you're hungry, have some decently already! _

I push at my stomach, maybe a motion or two would put it to ease for a little longer and set off into the kitchen area for a phone.

"I ha- gotta-got to ca-ca-call for help." I fumble up from the ground and wince. Shit I cut my hand, I flick of the glass sticking to my palm and press it my shirt as I walk over the dark kitchen.

It's bloody but fairly well put together, only a single cabinet door was open and emptied out. Odd sight but given the massacre and intestines lying around I can't say this is too weird. I peer back at the room covered in blood and shiver at it. It didn't look real, it just seems like a Halloween set up, and some mass murder would be around the next corner. I grab for a folded up towel on the counter and press it to my cut hard, the warmth is faded, hopefully it wasn't a deep cut, but the size of the shards seem to say different.

_Crap there goes my hand yet again hurting itself for stupid reasons._

I look up from the cabinets and a shadow's stretching out from the other hallway across from the living room and the garage. Oh, there might actually be a mass murder judging by the scene of the place.

_Shit, shit, shit._

I crouch down fast besides the island counter with my hands pressed over my mouth. I hear the scraping of feet dragging on the carpet and a groaning growing closer to the blood room.

_Why am I still here? I gotta get help now!_

My palms grow sweaty and my heart beats loudly. What if that is a killer standing 5 feet from me, what then? I've got no phone near me and no weapon to protect myself with, shit this could be bad, very bad indeed. I gulp and the groaning spikes up right then.

_Shit, did they hear that?_

I tremble as the shuffling moves towards me, slow, unsteady footsteps circle around the room and reaches the kitchen. It keeps moving in and I widen my eyes as I see something else by my feet now. A jumbo can of soup labeled in red font.

_Yes, thank you god!_

I jump up grabbing ahold of the island's countertop sending me up onto it and I throw the can hard at the figure and a hand coming closer to me as I leaned into my throw. It smashes into the figure cracking open in the air and splashing down on me. I fumble back at the wet stuff splattering onto me and I fall off the counter.

"Shit! No!" I flap out my arms trying to keep up but I slip off it still and whack my spine with the floor.

"Augh!" I cringe up as the pain travels up over my back. Stars and black spots dazzle my half lidded view.

_Shit that hurt!_

I whine out as my hands find the counter wall and I roll back to it with a wheeze as the pain goes through me.

_Dam, movies do that so much better._

I hack at the soup pushing into my throat and up my nose, disgusting little of chunks of peas and meat cloaked the smell of blood quite a bit, but it makes the smell seem like a cannibal's dream meal. A groan comes up from the other side.

_Oh shit!_

I slide up and over the island without thinking much of what I would see now, but there I clench the slab at the sight before me.

A human, a non-killing person, a man or woman, but none of them are correct for this.

A thing with two legs, legs covered with shabby brown jeans, speckled with black stuff all over. The arms hang far above the head and hold no fabric to them but a few rubber wristbands with smudged words. There's no ears or hair upon it head and no eyes, well not anymore since the soup can's split between it's skull and dripping out a lot of blood. The teeth on it are decayed and broken off in the torn off mouth something wet and mush looking slops out the floor.

_Is that its tongue? _

I peer over ledge a little more and finally narrow in at the most obvious point I wanted to think I was hallucinating about as I first looked over chest's bared open like a cadaver, split right open and dark red's dripping out of it as a half bitten heart swings out of it.

I drag my nails against the slab, my tongue sits limp in my mouth before I bend over the countertop more and lose my hold right there. Shit yet again.

"No, No!" I tumble down onto the thing. Bones crack as my weight lands upon them and I take a headfirst dive into the open chest.

The smell compels me to scream out. That ain't newly dead, isn't even close to being once a road kill possum stank and no way does a dead body smell that vile.

It's no doubt dead and rotted to the core as the smell goes further into my sinuses, burrowing deeper into my nose with its sickening matter. I shove off it, flicking back the red clinging to my hands and I bolt out of there.

I fall into the murder room tasting the iron flakes and animal hair picking up from the drenched carpet. I spit it out as I shriek at it touching me as I keep run forward and into a wall before making it down the hallway. I crash over the open door as my legs twist between my things. I scrap my knees against the concrete before I crawl back over to my shit and fumble out into the hot weather day.

"Hell," I wipe my cheeks smudge with blood and I bend over as the hot air surrounds my clotted senses. "I was just in hell."

_Oh god, oh god, oh god!_

"Help," I stand back up and look to the sides, no one's out but the stray garage bags hanging about the sidewalks and driveways. "I need…I need help."

I start off dragging along my bags and find my lungs hardly able to keep up with my run now.

_I'm scared. I'm so scared! What's going on here?_

I wonder as I pick up my pace and moved faster to the corner streets, back to where the guy and his brother sit awaiting me. He might as well be dead now that I have failed him, that big guy might pound me into the ground and blame me for coming back empty handed. Will he freak out at the blood and soup on me; then again he smashed some druggies brains out just before so he shouldn't mind.

* * *

**.**

**.**

**.**

* * *

My feet ache and I fall forward when I take the step off the grass and onto the street. The street's the exact same as I left, well maybe it is.

Big guy's still there, his half brother's laying there even the dead druggies are still there.

It did happen, it actually happened. Yup exactly like it was.

_Shit_.

I walk over breathing hard and stumbling pass the bodies staring up at me, I wave a hand up before thinking about it and touch big guy's back soaked through to a shaded dark brown now. He flinches and swings back with a closed fist at my out reaching hand.

"Ouw! Gu-Guy it's me!" I back track and fall down over that eyeless red head from before. God dam the thing from before looked like this as well. Is this some drug ring going on?

"Y-yo-You!" I whip back startled at the crack in his voice but more so the sudden shadow looming overhead me. I gulp and look up.

_Shit, he's crying._

The guy's face is a ruddy red and his eye still specks of dark color leak with tears down a bloody beard. Dam it he's hurt and I'm in for some hits from him.

_Shit, shit, shit on a stick!_

I get up, standing a foot and a half shorter than the big man, to peer around him. His brother's silent and dead in the face pale.

"How's Tho-" I catch my words as a grunt comes from the man and he leans forward to me. I screw my eyes shut and say my part.

"I didn't find anything, okay! I'm so, so, so sorry! Please, sorry!" I clench up and take a huge breath now, knowing in a moment I might be on the ground churning up my breakfast cereal from two weeks ago

The moment passes, I take another gulp of air and wait.

Then I feel the sun back on my face, I squint open an eye and see him stumbling away.

"Thomas..." His voice cracks again, his shoulder heave up and down as he goes step by step. More heaves and the cries get louder before he drops to knees without warning.

"Thomas! God why! Why!?" He shouts and birds pick up in flight at his volume.

I need to say something at least. I rack my brain for something holy and justifiable for the cruel scene playing out in front of me. What is there to say that won't lash right back at me? I'm playing a part in this catch-22 situation whether I like it or not now. I step to the side of him and put a hand on his shoulder, it trembles violently as he weeps. I look over the guy's brother, the body is in shambles, torn and frayed like a monster went at him. Flesh rubbed into the cement till its only scraps of pink. God Thomas was mauled by a pair of human hands and look at what it did to him.

_God and whoever else is out there, help this poor weaken man. He needs you all here now._

"And Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" The words carry out from past events and I well up as I speak it to him, it may not do well on his heart now, but at least he will remember it in time. I feel his shoulder tense up and his cries end there. Thank goodness.

"YOU THINK GOD'S GONNA FIX THIS," He lunges up at me twisting my wrist into a hard clasp, it feel like he's crushing them. Maybe he can now vent a little, well maybe a little just hopefully not in my face, please. "MISSY HE AIN'T HERE AND MY LIL' BROTHER THOMAS IS DEAD AS A DOOR NAIL!" He quakes as he yells, my ear go numb a moment in his rant. Spit and drool flies at my face as he guns on with his rage, I turn away finally coming to see he isn't stopping.

_This has gone way the fuck to far._

I twist my hand around his sweaty palms, and use my fingers to chomp down on the muscle around his thumb, he drops to knee at the spike of pain and kick him off to the ground.

He shouts something indignant things and rolls over his fat middle before landing beside his dead brother, well actually I haven't checked that status yet but by now and blood loss I'm sad to say that-

"Oh god! Ahhhhuurg!"

_I don't believe it._

Thomas's arm is clutching big guy's neck, ringing it in till his face starts to go deathly white.

"Dude, whoa, whoa," I pull at my bag's strap, tossing it off and fumbling for my stick. "What the fuck!?" I swear at the zipper when it finally opened up, the blue head sticking out, I grab it and point it out to the guys. No way could the dude be moving, much less choking his bro!

"Thomas! Thomas!" I scream out but he keeps-

"Scre-screw it!" Big guy's hands come around Thomas's hand and bites into the flesh. Oh man, that's half of his own fresh and blood he's gnawing off there. I move forward and whack the both of them over the head, like hell I was I having two more bleeding bodies on my conscious today.

"Stop it fool! he's injured, he has lost-"

_Again what the hell is going on?!_

Thomas was dead, guts spilled out and blood gushing out of him without cause to stop like a polite Englishmen. He's big guy's half brother barely known and now dead, shit. Big guy was crying all over him in the bloodily mess of Thomas, all over the squishy bits of him as he rocked back and forth his head with the sobbing. Now we have the pair of them, up in arms, trying to murder one another. What the hex is this scene!? Did I miss something?

_The dead do not come back from being gutted open! Ever! _

People die, but people don't die like this, on the street with their guts hanging out with bodies dead all around, this is a war field, a very strange and detached landscape. How and why is Thomas moving like that thing from earlier or like those druggies from before?

"Aggruu!" I blink and there Thomas lips, black like coal, pressed deeper big guy's jugular. The big guy's fallen over with his hands covering his neck, but I see the red dripping over his cupped hands. He's dead in minutes, just stuck there to be a human without blood. His head roll to the side and the blood comes at me in a heap.

"Fuck!" I grab at my face, warm ooze I know that's blood seeps into my eyes, it doesn't burn but it makes my vision clouded.

A moaning starts in front of me and a heavy hand sinks down onto my thigh.

_No!_

The weight presses further and I mange to see him, well now a **it** since the crazy dead look left on Thomas.

The scrawny guy's crawling, moaning, and not even taking notice to his intestines slipping out as he drags himself. The guy has lost more than enough to be dead as dirt and long since passed his way to a cruel, painful death. Still here he is before me _fucking_ crawling and lunging at me since the big guy is gushing out!

_You have got to be joking here! Ya'll got to be, right gods? Huh well are you now?!_

"Ah no, no," I'm screaming, kicking back at the blood soaked ground, smashing bits of the dead around me as it burns at my battered palms. "Thomas, come on man!"

Scrawny dude's dragging still, guts hanging out and things leaking out himself. He looks like a fucking Halloween freak, wide gashes through his arms, eyes swelled so much that their bloodshot and that godforsaken moaning and groaning he keeps up.

"Oh Pagan Gods," Words fly out just to make noises, louder and louder they get as my crawl fails to tire **it**. "Smite this mother f'er to the ground!" I hit something with my hands, long maybe and it wraps around my hand immediately.

"Dude, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!" I'm grasping the thing now dragging it back as **it **growls and clasps upon my calf. Eyes blank and hovering over my skin, I was about to become meat and blood, food for a drugged out human. I'm about to be murdered upon a nice summer day in Georgia.

_Oh god, no, no! I don't wanna die! I don't wanna-!_

"No!"

**Blood.**

Red spraying streams mark my view.

Lots of blood comes up.

Blood, blood, blood, and more blood.

It jumps up, touches my face and more of it slashes away.

My arms feel heavy, tensed for battle.

My throat tries to clamp down before I heave out another breath of air.

Its dry, parched and I'm huffing heavily.

"Oh shit…" I raise my arms up, crammed up and shaking, I'm holding my lacrosse stick. My lucky winning stick held now with blood on it. The blue head sprayed with blood, the shaft soaked through to a maroon upon the yellow fabric tape. My hands feel cold and let my possession fall to on **it**.

_My gods I just beat a man with this, I used this as a weapon. _

What was once Thomas, now lay smashed apart around the ground. Pieces here and there. A stray eye sits looking up at me, a cloudy screen give it a look of a blind man. Thomas was man, not blind, but at the very least a victim in this.

"Oh god..." I drop to the ground shaking over his body, oh so much already happened to his body and look at it now, pulped across the city street for all to see.

_**I've dam murdered somebody!**_

"No, no, no..." My hands find a patch of hair lying beside me, brain is mashed into it still.

Thomas was probably out of his mind, delusional or death march kind of shit. Then what about the druggies, is this the same? What about the soup can guy, was he a druggie or a victim like Thomas.

_Big guy!_

I whip my head and my stomach squeezes too much at the sight.

**Blood.**

Big guy's lying face down, his jean soiled with Thomas's guts dangling over them, blood's spilling away from him, streaking down the road as fingertips upon being dragged away. Arms stretch out, hands cling to the gravel in a useless battle. He doesn't make a sound, doesn't heave his gut up from the pavement to breathe. He's dead then.

I slump back over Thomas's remain, the rotted part burn my eyes and churn my stomach. I'm messed up beyond belief, not a single piece of god forsaken thing to today has made me physically sick, I'm that fuckin' shut off from emotionally up chucking it's scary now. Shouldn't I be mourning, begging a god for help or guidance but no I'm here pondering out how the fuck this all happened like_ I'm now some damn awesome detective_.

"Big guy, what the fuck happened," I raising my hands, whispering to the dead man, his blood's mixing into Thomas's torn legs. "This isn't right, is it?" He doesn't move, breath or even quiver in response.

I'm alone and I'm confused.

Thomas doesn't moan now, doesn't even look at me as I crawl over to the other, least big guy won't be mashed to pieces. He'll just be bloody and dead. Normal dead if that is a sound excuse for moving away of Thomas's rotted stench, smashed in head and gutted bowels.

"Bi-bi, big, big g-guy?" I rub his shoulder, it's too soft as my hand presses into the flabby skin, and the flesh untouched by blood is clammy. I draw away when my hands start to tremble. He's so cold now, so silent as my breathing sounds louder than a crowd of breathing people. It is or was minutes, maybe seconds but he was there, standing huge as a mountain, sweating disgusting beads of b.o and screaming at me. Gripping me tight, pushing himself to be the bigger threat and wanted to hurt me but he was hurt, conflicted by a nightmare just minutes before hand. Now he is dead, lying on the pavement without a notice that I murdered his brother like a psychopath.

What do I do now? Find the police? I don't know my way or how I got here. What if I get myself lost and turned around, what good does that do for two men I barely know and assisted in their deaths? I should find somebody, but is this neighborhood an illegal living situation, but then what about that soup can guy?

I look over big guy's person and check his back pockets. It's bad but maybe he was panicking and didn't think about using his phone, well if he has one on him. His pants are wet with blood that's thickening as I search the wide spaces. Neither pocket holds a phone, just a pack of smokes, some white stuff in a baggie and black-leathered wallet. I open it.

His face appears on a driver's license registered in Utah, he's, or was only 34. He was going to turn 35 next month. He's not a native of Georgia, maybe he came here to meet his half brother or moving down here. I should have brought up his life stories, sparked something real with his thoughts rather than talk about Christianity like I knew what it felt like having an unknown brother be ripped to shredded by druggies in Atlanta, Georgia.

* * *

"Holy shit!" I choke out as a cold thing wraps its way around my ankle.

"Oh hell…" I see it then, pale and bloody, a hand on me with a death grip. I wince as it keeps squeezing.

"Big guy!?" I can't believe it, he's alive, but oh whatever then! I gotta get help! I jump up but he keeps a hold, freakin' wrestle holding me there.

"Dude let it go, 'ome on!" I shake my leg, his grip slides and clutches my calf with more force. I fall back to my knees.

"Son of- let go dude!" I yell and whack at him. He goes off me and slams with the concrete.

**Blood.**

His face lies there as the red comes trickling up from under him. Oh gosh, oh damn I just broke his nose if that much blood's coming out. I waver then, should I check him, but then is he going to grab me again?

I hear a moan and then his hands come forth to drag him towards me.

_No, no, no, no._

He's making the sounds, the same just as Thomas was making before I smashed out his brains like it was a rotted watermelon.

"No...Big guy. No. Oh shit no.." I'm on my feet shaking as my voice whispers out and his hands move out again.

What in the world? Is this some freaked out dream, my imagination between waking up to my god awful alarm and burying deeper into the thick blankets enveloping in an inferno of heat and softness. People don't die, gush out blood and then fucking come up like a god dam supernatural monster.

"Big guy, come on now!" I trip over Thomas's body; landing right on my stick and I jump back up with it in hand. This is wrong, very wrong to be holding this sport equipment like a weapon now and to a man I have no idea what is wrong with him but a case of strange fast acting disease. Oh god or gods please let this be over with, I don't want another death on my hands. I don't want to think of the black nightmares anymore.

"Big guy! Please, please!" He groans, and throws up his head. His windpipe spurts out blood as the muscle flicks around with the sounds gurgling out his blood-crusted mouth. I choke on my breath at that, my hands lose all sensation, and my grip lets my weapon fall.

"Oh shit." I don't know the process of dying, what it feels and felt like to die, what might it be like on that side. What is big guy feeling now? Is he in pain, grueling torturous pain that'll rip his flesh to pieces at each movement? Is he scared, trying to cry out to me as he suffers to move closer and trembles as his head swirls. Is he is confused, not sure of where he is and not aware he's pushing himself to the brink of death. Is he even alive now?

He takes to a knee and growls as another hand takes me closer to his blood drooling mouth. I kick up, he growls at the twist of his jaw so he lets my arm go and I fall back to the ground with screams fly out of me. I don't want to bite by him, I don't want my blood spilt here. I don't wanna die!

I gulp as he flings back. Now with a face all stained with blood, his nose bent sideways and his huge gut swishing around. His knees drag over the pavement tearing the jeans away and then crunching under the patella being exposed. No way was he not feeling that now.

"Big guy!" Hey listen!" He hisses, literally up right hisses, tongue extended out and teeth bloody point out his sloppy bearded face. I widen my eyes and my heart pounds at the sight. what now? Run and pray I meet somebody and get this resolved? Never look back? Smash his brain in? Murder him? Let this happen to repent for Thomas's unfair death? Just die by the hands of an unknown man?

I freeze up that. I was giving up now, what the hex, mind! I don't wanna go, not up into the sky or down into the core of the earth. I wanted more in life, more of the sounds, the sights, everything that I could be a part or see till I die of a very normal cause of death when I'm breathing out dust and shit. Not now with myself screaming at a fat man covered in blood and without a logical way to end this.

My hand goes over top something cold and slimy, I know its human, but I look anyways and shudder. It's one of the druggies and I have squashed its thigh to the ground, bone sticks out past my fingertips and finally I let a idea come to mind. Gods forgive me.

_Dead man walking._

The thought whispers, nudging my hands to grab around for my stick again. Big guy's growling as he catches in the road before he can reach my feet again. He's staring, enraged but unfocused on where he is moving towards. His teeth snap, biting off his own flesh where falls off in plops. Marred arms jerk about in his attempt to move forwards, slashing air wildly and fingers popping out of place in the struggle.

I find my feet again, pull myself up without trembling knees to knock me over again and stand before big guy scrapping the ground closer to me.

"I'm so sorry."

My hands come down fast, hard and I screw my eyes shut at the wet sounds and cold splatter attaching to my arms.

I am helping, no murdering him, no helping him, maybe both maybe I'm a faulty person to do this but I'm scared and I don't want to be like this! I don't want to be here on the ground as well, I'm selfish to choose me over them but I don't know them as well as I do my own self.

He makes a noise, a gurgling moan and a screeching coming up in his massacred throat. Something touches me and I thwacking at it as well hoping it puts an end to this, an end like I did for Thomas. I drop to my knees at the thought, the horror at the things happening and I toss my stick aside, it'll be better if I go as well.

I cry out, pound the ground soaked with wet warmth and wait for big guy to crawl his way over to me again.

"I'm sorry!"

My hands aches with the punches, the scraping of knuckles on it makes a stingy throb start, a little dribbling of warm accompanies it but I wait there eyes shut for him to do this deed.

"I'm sorry!"

A trickle of sweat plunges down my spine, a cough tickles my throat and a tear falls from my cheek. I open my eyes, I should at least face death like a man, like I can really accept the end with teeth ripping me to shreds, pulling my skin apart, taking me to a hellfire no one but murderers should feel in the afterlife.

"I ssoo 'ucking sorry big guy! I'm sorry!"

I should let his rage or what the fuck is happening just rip me apart, but my legs still move pushing me away from his gurgling sounds and bloody hands. I'm still living and afraid to let him take me to hell fire. He's hissing, blood dropping from his lips and teeth dangling out as he lurches forward on hand and knee to me.

_Dead man walking._

___Dead man walking._

_Dead man walking._

Again ideas, thoughts to forgive me of this murdering bloom in me, but no I can not do this now, I can't! He scrapes across the street unaware as his nails rip off, flesh and muscle coming apart as he pulls forwards dragging his pads across jagged asphalt. He'll be a meat sack by the time he gets to me. An eyeless mass oozing over me, bones poking out, tearing me open as demons shall do to my soul once I finally pass. A stench of iron, grass and tar spread out over my thoughts as he comes closer and closer.

A death so foul.

A death covered in rot.

A death worthy of killers.

I'm that now.

* * *

"What's this now?" My heart goes out of me, the sound I swear is human, a string of words spun out as I shut myself down to die.

_A voice!_

_A voice?_

My eyes open and sees a confusing thing now. I was pondering, ready for this man to kill me like I did to his brother and now he's in front of me. Hands laid on my knees bone shattered and spiked out like Wolverine and his head hung downwards to the street with a knife in it and a dirty hand holding the handle still.

I gasp finding the world turn and I'm on my feet failing away from the scene blurring out as choke for another breath.

"Whooa," Again that voice, that voice comes up with a surprise and a snickering as I gather myself upon a hot wall far from Big guy and the knife welding hand. Still things remain out of focus, what now I need to to see, I gotta see!

Hands dragging on the wall burning with this heat wavering off it, pricking my fingers and I find a string of thoughts to follow.

I'm at a wall, a brick wall, big guy's not coming after me, he has a knife in him, there is a hand with a knife on him, I might be between a drug outbreak, my bag is somewhere over there, I like fancy cars.

"Hey!" My eyes bulge out as the voice snapping my thoughts, again my chest heaves out to breath but I gulp in nothing.

I don't know what to do. I have no clue what to do. Do I look up? Do l see what is there actually? Am I going to get hurt?

"Hey I'm talkin' to ya answer me!" I wheeze, my heart pounding and I chant.

_Look, look, come on look now, look now, do it look._

My head lift popping as I lift up and see beyond the cement sidewalk cracking along with weeds and pebbles between.

There's a guy, a white boy with a gnarly looking scar across his face and wearing this, this, blue jumpsuit. Mechanic maybe? He's standing and walking over to me that knife still griped between his hand.

"No get back now!" I push at the wall like I could press into more and hide from the guy looming in closer. He stops, thank gods, and speaks.

"You hear me?" I look up at him finally giving him attention rather than the knife shaking in his hand. I nod slowly. He sighs and drops the knife suddenly.

"Not gonna hurt you okay." He raises his arms, though I keep staring wide eyed as he sets his hands on his bandana covered head. I nod again with a gulp.

"What," He looks back eyes scanning a moment over the disgust and then right back at me with even more disgust. "happened?" I give the street a glance, my stomach whirling and grumbling as I see it all again.

"What the fuck is going on!" I mash my hands again my face, it all stinks and feels wet as I scream out. My head's throbbing, my heart's aching, my feet slip under me and then I'm on the ground shaking with my words.

"Hey, hey, hey! Hush now okay. " He's patting my head, rubbing my scalp as he speaks but what is going on? I don't get it!

"Let me get you out of here, okay? the police will be coming soon but you gotta calm down now girl." He keeps talking saying to relax and police on their way. My heart swells and I find a steady beat to breath at.

"You good?" He stops patting me, and lifts my chin up. I nod again as the '_wee-wooo'_ of sirens comes into hearing. I start to cry at that.

_Finally help was here._

* * *

**Next up Chapter Two **


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